Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Logo Design by Tubik
Logo Design by Tubik
Magazine
No. 2
Logo Design
Creative path to effective branding
2016
Logo Design
CONTENTS
About Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Chapter one. Definition and Types of Logos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Chapter two. Creative Stages of Logo Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Chapter three. Practical Cases of Logo Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Recommended reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
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Logo Design
ABOUT AUTHORS
Sergii Valiukh
Marina Yalanska
research.
Ernest Asanov
Polina Makarevych
design projects.
markets.
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Logo Design
BRIEF INTRO
It is not a secret that people are mostly visual creatures. They are
often driven by what they see faster than by any other way of perception. That is why an efficient visual sign is so important to make
a company, brand or service recognized quickly and remembered
for a long time. Investigations of the way to prosperity and fame of
the most successful businesses will inevitably prove how vital it is to
choose the good representative sign which is well-known as logo
and which is always the basis of the whole branding strategy.
Branding, in general terms, is never about just visual perception
or verbal message. Branding is about the whole image people get
hearing the name of a company or seeing its brand identity signs.
So, designing the signs and symbols which make a brand original,
easily seen and transferring the appropriate message is a job of a
great responsibility. In Tubik Blog, we have already published numerous case studies showing the process of logo creation in details
and also provided deeper considerations on correlations of branding and user interface design.
The previous book Design for Business, which we recently presented, was devoted to the topic of problem-solving and goal-centered
design. Grounded on the ideas, strategies and tips, offered in it, this
issue will add more practice and unveil the creative process for logo
design productively applied here in Tubik Studio.
Hopefully, it will be useful to build successful and productive strategies both for designers working in the field of branding and business
people wishing to get more about design techniques and their impact on business processes.
Tubik Team
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Logo Design
C H APTE R O N E
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Logo Design
What is logo?
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, logo is a symbol that
is used to identify a company and that appears on its products.
Even this quite broad definition contains the obvious message:
logo somehow becomes the first visual association that is brought
out when people think over or hear the name of the brand. As
any other visual element, logo itself can contain and transfer the
message about the nature of goods or services presented by the
brand, the tone and voice of companys communication with the
customers, the general brand image.
Logo design usually becomes the basis for the whole brand strategy
which is often fixed in a special set of rules and guidelines called a
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Logo Design
brandbook. Efficiently designed logo can definitely increase recognizability of the brand or company which enables the business to
achieve its goals, be it selling more goods, involving more customers, getting more subscribers or obtaining wider awareness. In addition, logo is the sign that makes the product or service different
from its competitors which is also an important pre-condition of the
companys fast and successful development.
Most logos look like a simple sign and that makes people think the
process of its creation is fast and simple, not needing too much effort or special skills. And that is quite a mistake. Efficient logo design
is a complex strategy that includes all the stages of design process
and marketing such as:
user research
marketing research
creative search
creating a style guide setting right and wrong cases of logo use etc.
Types of logos
Historically companies tried different variations of visual elements to
stregthen their branding: some of them preferred images or mascots
as the central element drawing attention while others favored the
idea of nice lettering immediately showing the name of the brand.
Through the decades, designers outlined five basic types of logos.
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Logo Design
Foxygenic
Lion browser
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LOGOTYPE / WORDMARK. This is a widely used type of corporate identity mark represented by artistic lettering featuring the
full name of the brand. It is a well-know fact that different sorts of
types and fonts can immediately transfer the messages and whole
stories to their readers and this trick is frequently applied by logo
designers and marketers.
Toonie
Ribbet
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Passfold
Referanza
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Andre
Swiftybeaver
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EMBLEM. This is also a sort of visual elements combination. The difference of this logo kind is that it inscribes the wordmark or lettermark
presenting the name of the brand into the symbolic image instead of
placing it over, under or beside the symbol as it is done in the previous case. The logos of this sort when created thougthfully feature the
integral and compact identity sign.
Design4Users
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simplicity
originality
versatility
recognizability
consistency of use
informativeness
memorability
longevity.
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The provided set of logo design features doesnt really look simple to
be combined in one sign. That is why this job is advised to be done
by professional designers. Even tiny disharmony, inappropriate color
combinations, lettering illegible in small sizes and tons of other invisible mistakes can considerably reduce the profits and customer trust
to the brand. Logo is the sign able to connect or disconnect customers and sellers in split seconds so its creation definitely is the food for
thought and object of thorough attention.
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C H APTE R T W O
Creative Stages of
Logo Design
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Showing personality in
with a client or employer. Its much easier to get a job you want,
audience to identify
with brands: it takes seconds for them to lose in the ocean of com-
petitors if they dont build up strong image and character via which
clients, buyers or users can get the chance to recognize them.
collections of people.
Aaron Walter
Logo is the basic mark of brand identity, the most prominent symbol
of brand image and the foundation of effective marketing strategy
enabling its connection with target audience. One of the misperceptions in the world of business is that if the product or service
is good, it doesnt need additional investments of time and money
into its promotion. However, it doesnt work like that: without brand
identity, even the high-quality product can get lost just because users or buyers wont get even a slim chance to learn about it or try it.
In the contrary, strong branding strategy sets the immediate connection of the product or company and its essential benefits with
the sign that represents it. Brands, products and companies need
their own personalities that will attract people in the way it often
happens with personal relationship.
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Worldwide famous designer and artist Karl Lagerfeld once said Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English but are great in remembering
signs. Knowing how far he went in the sphere of design, its really
easy to believe hes right, considering that plenty of big and small
companies proved that via their marketing experience.
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user research
marketing research
creative search
creating a style guide setting right and wrong cases of logo use etc.
This stage is the foundation of all the design process. This is the time
the client to mark the right way to the goal. It is well-known that the
one who walks without a destination in mind, will possibly come no-
where. In design (not only logo and branding direction) it works the
same way: to get the result, you should clearly set the goals from
the very starting point. It doesnt mean that the goals will stay totally
the same at the end of the journey: they can modify more or less
in the creative process. Still, if the goals are not set at the start, the
creative process can get easily transformed in a mess.
of your job.)
Mike Monteiro
Design Is a Job
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Obviously, the list is not totally full, still it contains the most important positions needed for setting a general design goal.
Research
This is the stage when being based on the established task and aims,
the designer has to get deeper into the environment in which the future branding sign will function. The research stage usually moves on in
two directions simultaneously: user research and marketing research.
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User research means getting deeper into details of core target audience, to know their preferences and psychological peculiarities,
the influence of color and data carrier on their emotions and experience, the sources of information and creative performance ways
which encourage them and make them active.
Marketing research means exploring the market segment, primarily
in the perspective of creative solutions used by competitors. Logo
design presumes creating a unique sign that will make the company or brand stand out of the crowd and draw potential customers
attention. Neglecting the research stage and relying only on their
creative intuition and talent, designers risk failing this task as they
will not know the conditions of the logo functioning and will not be
able to make it efficient and original.
Creative search
This is the stage, when armed with loads of data and seeing the path,
the designer sets off in creation process. The aim of this stage is to
develop one or several stylistic directions which will allow to fulfill
the branding goal and marketing needs. In all fairness it has to be
added that branding design process like every single personalization activity is very individual in each particular case. Sometimes it
happens that the requirements from the customer are so clear and
details are collected so carefully at the previous stages that logo direction is set during the first iteration and needs only to get polished.
In other cases, especially in cases when requirements are blur or
competition at the market segment is really high, various directions
should be analyzed and different variants have to be tested to get
the one which will be effective and original.
This stage can include creative outcome of different fidelity levels,
from rough pencil sketches to sophisticated digital samples. Any of
them can work efficiently, the choice of strategy depends on de-
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signers expert decision of more effective presentation way according to the clients requirements and specific type of logo. Speed and
urgency of project as well as its interconnection with other design
processes like, for example, interface design can also influence the
choice of presentation format. You can observe the variety of creative stages in our case studies on branding.
Early sketches of
creative search for
Passfold logo design
Early sketches of
creative search for
SwiftyBeaver logo
design
Early sketches of
creative search for
Tubik logo design
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Background
color options for
SailyApplogo
Testing
Designers believing that preparation of final high-resolution graphic
assets for a logo is the finish of the journey for them make a big mistake. As well as for any design task, post-design testing of the created
result is the must-do. For the logo, it is a vital condition of efficiency
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geographic location
color perception
gender
age
level of education
psychological peculiarities
technology awareness.
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The list can be continued longer and longer and amaze designers
and customers by its diversity level. To avoid the issues of misundestanding or misperception, as well as risk getting lost in the environment of other logos and icons, testing becomes the integral design
process stage.
SailyApplogo
tested as a game
character
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Horsy
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C H APTE R T H R E E
Practical Cases of
Logo Design
28
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For brands and companies, logo often becomes the sign of destiny, the instant visual connector of buyers or customers with offered
products or services. The importance of a logo as the center of
branding strategy is obvious and proved by practice.
Efficient logo is the result of thorough analysis and creative search,
designers ability to not only produce attractive visual sign, but also
keep in mind all the variety of factors influencing design solutions
making logo work properly and support general branding strategy.
Earlier we have read about the creative stages of logo design process in detail, and now we want to continue the theme presenting
the collection of logos created by Tubik Studio designers. Here you
will see the logos made for the wide variety of design tasks and target
audience, some of them are already implemented in real branding
strategies while others feature logo design concepts showing various
styles and approaches. So, lets get started!
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This design case showed the importance of the tight connection between logo and the other elements of user interface as well as general concept of the product. High attention to all the details provides
the result which makes pleasant-looking and efficient design.
Check the
presentation here
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The original version of the logo was colorful, but monochrome version was also accomplished and tested to provide branding solutions with high level of flexibility.
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Check the
presentation on logo
design here
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Check the
presentation on logo
design here
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The logo emblem transfers the basic message: the design resource
is simple and easy-to-use. It is done via sophisticated combination
of the basic geometric shapes circle and square with the letter
U in the center reflecting users as a center of design solutions.
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All the cases prove that logo is the object of thorough creative
search and analysis of various factors, both objective and subjective.
Logo obviously presents the key element establishing the foundation for efficient branding and marketing. Its design, taken seriously
and based on user research, analysis, talent and design laws can become a solid basis for successful communication of the brand with
its buyers, customers and users, that is why it needs careful professional approach.
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RECOMMENDED READING
Here are some more articles and books we could recommend for
those who would like to get deeper into the topic:
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and keep up with new updates. New issue of Tubik Magazine
is coming soon!
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